Look, let's not mince words: we Pirate fans have been waiting 20 years for a legitimate baseball team to take place in a legitimate pennant race. We almost got one last year, but instead we ended up with something much worse. This year looks different.

The Pirates have a huge stretch of games between today and the trade deadline. This is the biggest and most exciting stretch of baseball for me as a Pirate fan since I was in second grade. For the last decade or so, the pinnacle of being a Pirate fan has been saying, "When all this comes together for a pennant race in 20XX…"

Well, here we are.

The Pirates have a four-game lead on the Reds for the National League's top wild card spot. They are in Cincinnati tonight. Francisco Liriano is on the mound, facing off against Mike Leake. The first pitch is at 7:10.

About Pat Lackey

In 2005, I started a WHYGAVS instead of working on organic chemistry homework. Many years later, I've written about baseball and the Pirates for a number of sites all across the internet, but WHYGAVS is still my home. I still haven't finished that O-Chem homework, though.